


Habits

by exovelvetwriters



Category: EXO (Band), Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, EXOVelvet, F/M, Horror, Thriller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:49:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28832223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exovelvetwriters/pseuds/exovelvetwriters
Summary: Min keeps things just how she likes it.Genre: Horror/Mystery/Thriller, Prompt: Scent
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene & Kim Minseok | Xiumin, Bae Joohyun | Irene/Kim Minseok | Xiumin
Kudos: 3
Collections: EXOVelvetWritersFest 2.0





	Habits

_ Linens. Essential oil. The tea kettle only just switched off. _

That’s how things had to be Sunday mornings. The clean scent it created was just her preference.

_ Linens. Essential oil. The tea kettle only just switched off. _

It took some time of course. To remember these little details. He had to remind himself, over and over at the beginning. Back then, he would often forget one thing or another. Either to fold the ironed linens, to plug in the lavender oil, or to boil the tea and turn it off before it could whistle.

But a month into living with Joo, it had become a habit he perfected.

She absolutely had to have her only rest day start off like that. And so he drilled it into his memory. 

_ Linens. Essential oil. The tea kettle only just switched off. _

_ Linens. Essential oil. The tea kettle only just switched off. _

_ Linens. Essential oil. The tea kettle only just switched off. _

Because he was a Good roommate. If he were Bad, if he ever misplaced anything out of line, she would never come back. 

And he couldn’t live like that.

So he goes to fold the linens, adjusts the oil plug, and hastily switches the tea kettle off.

Even if she isn’t there anymore.

x

They never found the body.

The body which he missed seeing around. Lounging on the couch. Studying furiously in the after hours of work on the dining table. Avoiding him in embarrassment the morning after bringing home a special  _ friend _ .

Maybe it was a good thing. Neither confirming or denying what had most likely happened. 

When he had turned on the local news channel app on his phone on the way from work a few months ago, he could have hardly imagined that the headlines flooding tags and feeds were referencing her.

“Young woman in her early 20s disappeared ... authorities say .... suspected psychological manipulation….likely the victim of an ongoing series of predatory brutal attacks....perpetrators yet to be caught….”

People in the comments all seemed to assume she’d met her fate. 

Long passed and gone from this world, in cruel ways they didn’t want to think of. At least, he himself tried not to think of it.

The emptiness that filled in their overpriced flat.

Up until then, he never admitted that she was gone. Not outloud. 

So he went about his days, like nothing had happened. 

A reality no one wanted to confront, blending seamlessly into his no longer neat and tidy life.

x

The pretending doesn’t last, of course. He can’t keep it up too long before it begins to eat at him.

“That ends our session for today, Mr. Kim. Do you have any questions or comments before I let you go?”

“No, don’t think so. Thank you, Dr. Lee. I’ll see you next week.”

He shuffled out of the office, and nearly immediately after seeing him out, Dr. Lee sends an e-mail with notes from their ongoing session to an intern shadowing her on the case. 

_ There’s some self-blaming and I suspect deeper trauma we haven’t gotten at yet. He genuinely believes that because he forgot to plug in the essential oil diffuser that day, that it’s his fault that she went missing. That he messed up some kind of unspoken balance, organization, or routine of life which led to her unfortunate case. I will continue our sessions and ask him about permission for some remote monitoring for you to oversee his home life and behavior. _

x

Somehow Sunday has come to haunt him again. 

The day always crept up on him much too quick.

To relieve himself of the emptiness of his apartment, he’s taken to the Church now. Everyone has departed from service already. And now, on his knees and in the quiet of the altar, he knows he should be feeling humbled and free from judgement in God’s house, but all he can think about is how he hasn’t set the apartment the way she likes it before having left earlier.

There’s no confession box but he whispers to the floor anyways -- semi coherent jumbling, like a mad man. 

“I would’ve remembered. I’m Good when I remember. Lavender. The oil diffuser. Sometimes, I am Bad but I am always trying. Is it okay? To be Bad sometimes?”

There is no answer in the empty hall. 

Instead, he remembers his therapists’ first words after he had admitted to having forgotten to set the essential oil that day.

“You were not to blame.”

The statement echoes in his ears. How confidently she said it, even though she was so wrong. And no matter how many times it rung through him, bouncing in the empty void of his chest and the deep valleys of his heart, he can not find it in himself to believe it. 

x

_ Linens. Essential oil. The tea kettle only just switched off. _

That’s how things had to be Sunday mornings. The clean scent it created was just her preference.

_ Linens. Essential oil. The tea kettle only just switched off. _

It took some time of course. To remember. He had to remind himself, over and over at the beginning.

But a month into living with Joo, it had become a habit he perfected.

She absolutely had to have her only rest day start off like that. And so he drilled it into his memory. 

_ Linens. Essential oil. The tea kettle only just switched off. _

_ Linens. Essential oil. The tea kettle only just switched off. _

_ Linens. Essential oil. The tea kettle only just switched off. _

Because he was Good. If he were ever Bad, misplaced anything out of line, she would never come back. 

And he couldn’t live like that.

He switches the kettle off. 

Behind him, he hears the door open. 

x

“You reviewing the footage, Park?”

Dr. Lee plops down across from her awkwardly lanky fresh-out-of-college intern. 

“Yes. It’s....strange. Honestly, disturbing if I watch too long. The man’s got some interesting habits. Every Sunday he folds the linen, checks on his oil diffuser, and boils his tea first thing in the morning in exactly that order. It’s like he can’t start his day until those things are done.”

She nodded along, the information not surprising to her. 

“Sounds about right. I’m suspecting it’s a coping strategy manifested in some OCD around hygienic behaviors and comforts that remind him of her. They were roommates for quite some time before her disappearance.” 

“That would explain it. But there’s some other things too that I…..can’t quite explain. I have some suspicions, though. Would you mind watching it over with me?”

He skips through the recording and moves back to the section just after Min has completed his odd ritual. 

Alone in the kitchen, he suddenly opens and closes his apartment door. His back is facing the camera now for quite some time, but it looks like he’s carrying on a whole conversation. The audio is soft but even from behind, his hands are animated like authentic gestures in a passionate dialogue. When he turns and the camera gets a glimpse of his lips moving, he freezes.

For a long while, he just stands there. 

Then it begins to happen.

He walks over to where the oil diffuser is plugged and roughly unplugs it. With force, he throws it across the room only to walk over and kneel at where it landed. From there he begins to slap at air, as if slapping another person. His voice is mumbling, it’s all too garbly to make out, but it’s a distinctly feminine voice much different from his usual pitch and tone. 

“It’s not the first time he’s done something like this. Especially with that voice. I suspect he’s acting. Like, he’s completely taken into another character.” 

Park begins to narrate as Dr. Lee watches on with furrowed brows, in-between thumbing through physical notes for reference. 

He continues as she contemplates. 

“My guess is that he has developed an entirely separate personality to mimic Joo, and fill in her absence by acting as her --- maybe not even act. It feels too real sometimes to be an act. It’s like he really is her. Like he’s possessed.” 

She hums before shutting the video off, apparently having seen enough once Min has stood and begun shouting expletives at himself for being ‘ _ bad _ ’. 

Closing her book, she takes a stab at interpreting what has unfolded before her eyes. 

“It may be likely that he is trying to relieve guilt by re-enacting what he believes would have been Joo’s anger and response towards him that day before she disappeared --- he wants that anger to be validated, he’s seeking the closure he never got in his own way. And you know what they say, people prefer the certainty of misery over the misery of uncertainty.” 

“How long do you think this personality has existed in him?”

Park never gets his answer as Dr. Lee’s phone sets off. She gestures to the hall before taking the call in private.

As he waits for her return, he re-opens the video, skipping over the gruesome shouting and playing the end, having not quite seen the very last moment of the recording. 

In its final moments, Min is about to cook dinner when a glitch in the recording occurs. The screen breaks up for a second, and a strange blurry filter comes on before it cuts back to normal. 

Only a flash of a black wave, almost looking like hair, emerges and disappears around the corner. 

The video ends and Park doesn’t have any time to think on what he’s seen when Dr. Lee 

re-enters the office.

She’s pale and clearly shaken. He’s never seen her like this before.

“It was a call from the authorities. I had put in a request to get any official public updates on the case. They got back to me.”

She swallows before sitting down. 

“There was never a Joo.”

There’s a long pause while Park is trying to process what she’s saying.

“What do you mean?”

“Joo doesn’t exist. Never had, never will.”

“The case…...the disappeared woman, he ---”

She cuts him off. “The case was real. Joo wasn’t. The victim’s body has been found. The records have all been cross-checked and triple verified. Min never even had a roommate, there was no other co-signer on his rent. Ever.”

x

For the first time in months, Min finds the next Sunday goes off without a hitch. 

Of course it would, now that she’s finally back. 

He’s home now that she is. He doesn’t need to go to Church anymore. Therapy, either. She told him it wasn’t necessary. 

Not anymore now that he is Good. 

These days, he always remembers. Never forgets.

_Linens._ _Essential oil. The tea kettle only just switched off._

“The house smells perfect. I really lucked out, with a roommate like you.”

She’s smiling at him from where she’s lounging on the couch with familiar twinkling in her eyes.

All he can do is think about how she’s perfect. No one else would forgive him for making such a brutal mistake. 

“Lucky for you I’ve made it a habit. This place will always be just how you like it.” 

  
  
**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos and comments for our author! <3 You could also leave a like and share with your friends on Twitter! Just look for our festival thread on @exovelvetwrtrs.


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